Part of 4. Questions to the Minister for Education and Welsh Language – in the Senedd at 3:48 pm on 14 March 2023.
Well, Heledd Fychan raised some very important issues. She knows that I agree with her that schools should be accessible to children from all backgrounds, and the school essentials grant has made a significant contribution to that, and along with that, we are launching a campaign to market the availability of that grant in order to ensure that everyone who qualifies does apply for that funding. One of the challenges in spreading free school meals in all primary schools is that you don't have that free-school-meals data anymore, so it's important that we communicate this new programme, and a comms plan is in place at the moment and is showing some progress.
In addition to that, she mentioned that we have been consulting on changing guidance on school uniform. The new guidance hasn't yet been published, but I intend to do that in the next few weeks. It's very important that we do ensure that every governing body looks in earnest at this issue. Most do see this as an important priority already. There are important guidelines available to schools from Children in Wales, which does explain to headteachers and to governing bodies how they can ensure that the costs of schooling aren't a barrier to becoming involved with the school's life more widely, and I encourage all schools to do everything that they can to keep costs as low as possible.